


Chameleon Species

by autobotscoutriella



Category: Transformers (Bay Movies)
Genre: Alien perspectives, Gen, camouflage, pre-ROTF, tagging both versions of Arcee because I view her as a 'trio' character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:20:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25370791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/autobotscoutriella/pseuds/autobotscoutriella
Summary: Arcee needs a disguise a little sooner than she had expected after arriving to Earth.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10
Collections: FandomWeekly (2019-2020) Writing Challenge on Dreamwidth





	Chameleon Species

**Author's Note:**

> I really enjoy getting into Arcee's head a little more. Someday I need to write a longer fic from her perspective. (Perspectives? The multiple-body thing is fun but not entirely intuitive as far as grammar goes.)
> 
> Originally written for [FandomWeekly](https://fandomweekly.dreamwidth.org/342969.html) for the prompt "Camouflage".

It would have been better to arrive in the middle of the night, when most of this hemisphere's inhabitants would be in their recharge cycles and unlikely to spot yet another "mysterious asteroid event" plummeting out of their atmosphere. But Arcee had always been fashionably early, and broke through the upper layers of Earth's atmosphere less than thirty minutes after sunset in her target landing zone.

For an easier flight through space, she had merged her three bodies together into her base form. The experience of the alien atmosphere rushing around only one frame, not three, was deeply unsettling, and it took more focus than usual to maintain her intended trajectory. The coordinates she had been sent three days earlier were just slightly out of range, and as suspicious as a mysterious asteroid event could be (at least on a planet that didn't often experience them), a mysterious asteroid that changed trajectory mid-flight was even more likely to attract attention.

She crashed to Earth in the center of a broad green field, catching a brief glimpse of pipes and netting set up at one end of it under towering light poles. Dirt and grass - the names for the substances flashed through her processor as pre-programmed routines automatically accessed the local datanet - flew everywhere as her comet form skidded across the ground, bounced a few times, and came to a halt resting up against the junction between the grass and the concrete.

Distant screams echoed through the night, and Arcee cursed internally. Apparently there had been organics somewhere nearby – specifically, organics who were _not_ the team that was supposed to meet her and direct her to the new Autobot base.

_Scrap_.

Arcee did the only thing she could under the circumstances. She transformed, and still in her base form, she fled into the nearest cluster of buildings that seemed to be mostly uninhabited.

Sirens wailed in the distance as she crept quietly through back alleys and ducked under outdoor staircases and balconies ("fire escapes", the local datanet helpfully informed her). A call to the Autobot base, carefully shielded against Decepticon eavesdropping, had proved unhelpful. There was a team on their way, but they were still three local hours away. If she had landed at her planned time, she could have relaxed in the field and waited, but since the organics were aware of her presence, all she could do was try to avoid detection for three local hours.

The sky overhead shimmered with alien stars when she took a quick look. She would have liked to see it through all three of her bodies, but three Cybertronians would cause even more panic than one. She needed a better disguise.

One of the buildings in the distance flickered with neon lights, revealing what looked like familiar shapes. Arcee eased her way toward it, ducking back into the shadows as a car layered with sirens and flashing lights turned a corner in front of her. The organics must not have known what to look for; she wasn't particularly well-hidden, and unlike some other scouts, she had never mastered the art of disguising herself as a scrapheap.

But then the car passed, giving her a chance to edge her way across the road and into the shadows outside the neon-lit building ("dealership"), where she finally got a look at the shapes inside.

_Oh, beautiful._

The two-wheeled vehicles ("motorcycles") stood in rows inside the door, shimmering in a rainbow of colors and models. Arcee let her bodies detach, making her way toward three different points outside the building to get a better look at her options. There were _dozens_ , most of them the appropriate size, all of them in colors that would have been jarringly bright back on Cybertron but seemed to fit in better in this world of neon lights and dirt and grass and emergency vehicles that flashed blue and red in the darkness.

As if summoned by her thoughts, sirens chirped behind her second body, piercingly loud and startling. She froze, one hand creeping toward a weapon.

_Time's up._

The first row of motorcycles shone pink and purple and blue in the neon lights. They were perfect.

Only a few moments later, three motorcycles, each one with a helmeted female rider, pulled away from the back parking lot of the motorcycle dealership. The blue motorcycle's rider waved at the police car sitting at the edge of the block, before all three turned onto the road and vanished into the night.

The retrieval team would probably appreciate being met halfway, after all.


End file.
